In 2011, more than $5 billion was invested in sales applications. Sales organizations are focusing their sales application investments on the differentiation and innovation of application pace layers. This has led to an uptick in analytics, cloud-based offerings and mobile device deployments. Sales performance management and lead management have also gotten more attention, because sales organizations are positioning themselves for accelerated growth in the next couple of years.

Analytics, mobility, social media and cloud services have a strong influence on the technologies in the 2012 Hype Cycle for CRM Sales. We review the visibility, maturity and value of key sales technology sectors to help sales organizations determine which applications will best meet their needs and budgets.

Robert P. Desisto
VP Distinguished Analyst14 years at Gartner 24 years IT industry

Robert Desisto is a Vice President and Distinguished Analyst in Gartner Research. He is responsible for managing the software as a service (SaaS) research agenda. His research focuses primarily on the use of SaaS as a delivery model for applications. Read Full Bio

A lot of business models will be changing. The cloud affects the way that solutions are deployed. There are many different kinds of cloud solutions (Ex. SAAS and IAAS etc). Seems to me you will still need sales, if you are selling proprietary licenses I believe that Open source solutions will have a bigger effect on sales and business models, since less of the revenue will be coming from selling licenses. It will shift more to selling services, instead of software or equipment in the cloud case, which is different. Selling skills and compensation will have to adapt.

Comments or opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual contributors only, and do not necessarily represent the views of Gartner, Inc. or its management. Readers may copy and redistribute blog postings on other blogs, or otherwise for private, non-commercial or journalistic purposes, with attribution to Gartner. This content may not be used for any other purposes in any other formats or media. The content on this blog is provided on an "as-is" basis. Gartner shall not be liable for any damages whatsoever arising out of the content or use of this blog.